


Unknown Terrain

by cuppateadeer



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Drunk Sex, F/M, Oral Sex, Pre-Relationship, angst but it gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-27 10:59:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17765534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuppateadeer/pseuds/cuppateadeer
Summary: One evening after a little too much wine, Miller and Hardy do something that sends their relationship down unknown  paths ...





	1. Out-of-body-experience

**Author's Note:**

> So my first fic (on here). I haven't even watched S3 completely yet, but this little thing came to me last night. I don't know how long it might get, i'm just seeing where these two take me at this point.

It had all started when they were drunk. Miller had admonished him all day for not having eaten anything, and had insisted on inviting him over for dinner that evening. They'd had excellent italian food and lots of red wine – Fred was asleep when he arrived, Tom was sleeping over at a friend's – and by the time he makes his way to the front door a bit after 10 pm, he's feeling buzzy and lightheaded.

His memory of how it happened is unclear now, but he knows that his foot caught on something and suddenly his body was against hers, and his hand landed somewhere it shouldn't be, and inexplicably, instead of taking it off her altogether, he moved it to her back and kept her pressed against him.

He remembers the warmth of her body and the moment their eyes meet, and he reads confusion and surprise in hers, but also a question, a search for something that he knew she would find answered in his own. 

And then her lips are on his, and he feels himself stumbling backwards in shock, never letting go of her back and pulling her with him. He closes his eyes and meets her tongue with his own, and her hands are tugging the shirt from his trousers and his are tangled in her hair, and entwined like this she guides him up the stairs and through the door into her bedroom, and pushes him down on the bed.

For a moment, their eyes meet and time seems to slow down, as the incredulity and enormity of the situation sinks in. „God, what are we doing“, she mutters more to herself as she looks at him sprawled helplessly on her bedsheets. But then the moment passes and she is on top of him again, her fingers fumbling with his belt, their lips crashing clumsily, and he moves his fingers under her shirt, caressing the soft skin.

Before they know, most of their clothes lie removed on a pile next to the bed. He unclasps her bra and cups her breasts with his hand, thumbing over her hard nipples. She breathes hard and he moans as she palms his erection through his boxers. He turns them both over and moves himself on top of her in a fluid motion, kissing his way down her belly and tugging at the hem of her panties as his lips caress the insides of her thighs. She breathes in shakily at the feeling of his beard stubble against her skin and impatiently slips closer to him on the mattress.

„Alec“, she moans and the sound of his name from her mouth sends fire sparking through his body, and he rips her panties off completely and moves his tongue over the spot where she needs him the most, a light, quick stroke at first, before he sinks it back into her wet folds, circling her entrance, licking his way up to her clit, sucking lightly, then harder, savouring her taste and the moans he elicits from her and the way her hands are tangled in his hair and her back arches over the mattress.

Then, suddenly, he feels his head being tugged upwards, and he meets her eyes, burning almost black with lust. „Fuck me“, she says. Her gaze holds his, steady, determined. „I want you inside me.“  
His head swims, he feels like he's having an out-of-body-experience, and at the same time he feels more in tune with, more alive in his own body than in a long time.  
„Do you have a condom?“ His voice is hoarse, deeper than usual.  
She nods. „In the nightstand.“  
He angles his body over so he can open the drawer, and he tries not to think about the fact that these are most likely still left from Joe as he opens a wrapper with shaky fingers.  
He glides back over her again, positions himself at her entrance and looks at her. She nods, her gaze still determined and hungry.

He pushes himself in and closes his eyes at the feeling of tight warmth engulfing him. It's been a while since he's done this, and he has to concentrate to not end this too soon. She moves her hips against his, and soon they've found a rhythm, bodies in sync as her hands move around on his back and his lips suck at her neck and her nipples. Her breathing gets harder, her nails scratch against his skin, and he feels himself inching closer, his movements more erratic now as he slips a hand between their bodies and thumbs her clit. She throws her head back, her hands sinking down to his butt and pushing him deep inside her as she comes with a muffled scream, and her pulsating heat sends him over the edge too.

He collapses on top of her, pressing sloppy kisses on her neck and collarbone as they both try to catch their breath. He slips out of her, removing the condom, and falls down next to her on the mattress. With the endorphins subsiding, reality seeps slowly back into their brains, mixing with the contentment of the afterglow. He could just turn around, pull her into his arms, bury his nose in her hair and go to sleep, and he wants to, God, does he want to, but the rational side of his brain that's been out of power for the past half hour comes back with a vengeance.

„Oh my God, what did we do?“ She seems to be sharing his thoughts. He looks over at her. She's staring up at the ceiling, slight panic written on her face.

He doesn't know what to say. „I should probably go“, he mutters after a while, not moving. Finally she turns her head to him. There's a peculiar look in her eyes that he can't read. He thinks he can see sadness. Part of him hopes that she's gonna say, no, stay, i want you here. But she turns to look at the ceiling again, and when she speaks, her voice sounds far away.

„Yeah, I think that would be the best.“

He moves around the room in silence, picking up his clothes. She avoids looking at him as he gets dressed, and when he buttons up his shirt he opens his mouth to say something, anything, but the only thing that gets out is „Well. Good night then.“ 

She looks at him then, and there it is again, that look, that hint of sadness. „Good night, Alec.“


	2. The Miller-thing

The walk home seems hazy in his memories. The cool night air is doing its best to blow the last remnants of excitement and arousal, of post-orgasmic bliss out of his system.   
Back at home he sinks down onto a chair, resting his face in his hands and staring out over the dark water. Daisy is already asleep, or maybe she's just on her phone in bed, either way, she's not coming out to greet him, and for once he's thankful for that. 

The reality of the situation is now fully settled in his brain. He doesn't feel drunk anymore.   
_I slept with Ellie Miller. My colleague._ And it was good. He isn't gonna pretend that it wasn't good. It was the best sex he'd had in years.

A half-sigh, half-groan escapes his mouth as he lowers his forehead on his arms. He has no idea what to do.

**

He approaches the small kitchen hesitantly, knowing full well that he can't keep putting this off. Besides, he hasn't slept well, for obvious reasons, and he really needs some tea now. 

Miller – Ellie – is standing with her back to him at the counter, stirring sugar into a pot of tea. He breathes in deeply and steels himself. After testing his voice with a tiny cough, he manages some words. „Good morning.“

She turns around a tad too quickly, and when she speaks, her voice is a tad too high. She smiles a bright, over-compensating smile, but there's uncertainty in her eyes as she meets his gaze. „Good morning.“

He's spent the entire drive to the police station debating with himself how he's gonna do this. Whether they should talk about it, whether he should be the one to bring it up, or whether they should ignore it and pretend it never happened.

As he stands there now in the doorway, he finds that this entire internal debate has been useless, because even if he'd wanted to bring last night up, he physically can't do it. He saves himself with the papers he holds in his hand.

„So a lot of the party guests' alibis have been checked and most of them hold up, but for a few of them we can't account for their movements for significant portions of the night, so we should concentrate on those today-“

„Alec.“ 

He doesn't even acknowledge hearing her, doesn't look up at her. He barely knows what he's actually saying as he talks ever faster, he just knows that he has to keep going because he can't do this right now. 

„- so i suggest we start with the adresses closest to the beach and work our way up, lots of interviews, and we've got so little time -“

„Alec!“

There's an edge to her voice now, and finally he shuts up and looks at her. She's frowning, but as soon as their eyes meet, her face softens. 

„Last night -“

„- was a mistake.“ His voice sounds pressed. „I am your boss, I take full responsibility for this, it should never have happened. I am sorry.“

She opens her mouth, and closes it. He watches her carefully. Is that … disappointment in her eyes? As soon as he thinks he's seen it, it's gone again as she composes her features. 

He wishes she would do her Miller-thing that he always pretends to be exasperated by, that she'd draw herself up and call him a fuckwit or a knob or something and tell him to shut up, that he's talking nonsense, because it's nonsense to call something a mistake that feels so good and so _right._

But she doesn't. Instead she just hands him a mug of tea – he carefully avoids touching her hand as he takes it – and exits the kitchen, leaving him there, emptiness filling his chest, a feeling of having made an incredible mistake overtaking him, despite knowing, rationally, that he didn't have a choice – right? After all, what else was he supposed to do?

**  
They manage to get through the day somehow. To their colleages, to the suspects, they appear normal. But he's glad whenever they arrive at a suspect's house, whenever it's time for an interview, so that he can take his focus off Ellie and direct it on someone else. 

In the car the air is dense and prickly between them, like static hanging in the atmosphere. They avoid looking at each other, sit stiffly to avoid accidentally brushing against the other. He's hyper-aware of the distance between them at all times and he can't tell if he wants to heighten or bridge it. When he comes home that night, he's exhausted. He's glad to see Daisy, Daisy, who's just like she'd been yesterday, and the day before that, with her problems in school and her nose buried in her phone. He makes conversation eagerly with her over dinner, enjoying the way he can just talk for the first time this day, without choosing his words and his movements carefully.


	3. Complicated

Their relationship normalizes somewhat in the following weeks. None of them ever mention their … incident again, and they get back to their usual banter and arguing. But still there's something off, and he hates it. The one thing he'd always liked about Broadchurch – Miller, and her constancy, the way he always knew exactly what she was going to say, how she was going to react, the way they just vibed and fought and trusted each other and annoyed each other – feels like it was taken from him. It's as if the sunlit path of their relationship, the path that he knew so well and walked so comfortably, is suddenly plunged into darkness and he has to find his way around it, setting his steps carefully, slower and more deliberate than usual. 

He wants it back. He wants things to be the way they were before. But why, then, he thinks as he sips on a beer on his porch and counts the streetlights reflected in the rippling water, why can't he bring himself to regret that goddamn night?

Approaching footsteps rip him out of his trance. She is standing before him so suddenly that it appears as if she had materialized from thin air.

„This is ridiculous. We need to talk.“ Her feet are planted steadily on the ground, her face determined. He half-rises out of his deck chair, uncertainly looking up. 

He doesn't even know why he says his next words, why he repeats such an obvious, screaming lie. „I told you, it was a mistake, I'm taking responsibility for it -“

„Bullshit.“ There it is. She's doing the Miller-thing. Relief and fear rise in him; he knows where this will lead, and he's been trying to avoid it for the past weeks while simultaneously hoping against all reason that it would happen.

„It was not a mistake.“ She steps closer to him. „You wanted this as much as I wanted it. Don't try to deny it.“ She puts her hand on his chest, her fingers lightly moving over his shirt, over his not-broken-anymore heart. His breath hitches and when their eyes meet, he know he doesn't have to say anything anymore, it's all in there for her to see. 

„We're colleagues. I'm your boss.“ He doesn't know why he still tries to argue his point, with his heart beating so tell-tale under her fingers, screaming at him to just let this go, to just lean in and kiss her.

„And? It's not like that's illegal.“

„It would make everything so complicated ...“ His voice is barely more than a whisper.

She laughs, a bitter, short snort. „Complicated? My life has been a bloody shitshow these past years. It doesn't get more complicated than that. You've been the one constant in all of it. You got me through it. Is it really a wonder that I fell in love with you?“

She says it so matter-of-factly that for a few seconds it doesn't even sink in. Then, finally, understanding begins to seep into his brain. His eyes widen as he looks at her, still standing there as determined as before in the shimmery darkness.

„You – you're in love with me?“

„Yes.“ She doesn't break her gaze for a second. „And I'm not gonna make you say it back, because I know you're too much of a coward to do so and I am considerate as fuck. Actually, I changed my mind, you don't deserve me.“

Laughter, airy, disbelieving, bubbly laughter rises in his chest and rolls off his lips. She joins him, and for the first time in weeks he can feel all the tension between them fade, washed away by the waves of their laughter. His arms stretch out to her automatically, and this time he doesn't stop them, takes in the feeling of her skin under his fingers as he lets them wander over her arms. 

„I love you, Ellie“, he says, and as soon as the words leave his lips he knows that they have been true for a long time.

Now it's her turn to look surprised. Slowly, she smiles, a wide, genuine smile that spreads across her whole face and sends butterflies fluttering through his stomach. She kisses him deeply, gently, and he tastes the smile on her lips, and this time he's drunk on something entirely else as he puts his hand on her back and pulls her closer.


End file.
